• I AM shocked at the complete disregard of Camden Council for the wellbeing of residents and UCLH users.

Over the last few weeks large swathes of Tottenham Court Road (TCR) have been barri­caded off, several pedestrians crossing closed for days at a time, and no signs put up to tell pedestrians how to how to cross.

One example: if one walked from Whitfield Street to TCR via Grafton Way you could not cross in any direction; neither to go across TCR towards UCLH or to cross Grafton Way between Boots and the pub. Pedestrians had to back-track the way they came and do a big loop.

There are people who do not know this area well coming to the various hospital buildings from Warren Street and Goodge Street tubes who need clear signage. In addition to this is the night-time construction noise. A good night’s sleep is vital to stop illness and stress.

Our building 30-40 Grafton Way is to be the big loser from the council’s new West End Project road scheme. The council predicts a permanent change to a heavier traffic flow on Grafton Way which will idle below our building for increased lengths of time.

Because we will have to suffer worse air quality from the project our tenants’ and residents’ association asked that we should not have to suffer the construction impacts as well, that there should be no night works.

In 2018 we were told they didn’t expect to do out-of-hours work but if they needed to they would liaise with us closely. So I was surprised to find a letter through my door on March 4, informing us (not liaising with us) that they would do all-night work but noisy work would finish at 10pm.

But even this was not true. One night I went out after 10pm with the council’s letter to say they ought not to be using a jackhammer as I considered this incredibly noisy.

The contractors stopped and the following day a woman from the council’s West End Project team confirmed that no noisy work should happen after 10pm.

So imagine my surprise another day to be kept awake until well after 3am by more incredibly loud tarmacking work (including using the whacking machine to flatten the street surface and then, for some reason, digging bits up with the jackhammer machine again); only to be told by the same woman from the council that they were allowed to!

It is very disappointing that a councillor who was copied into the numerous emails on these issues has done nothing to help so far (as of April 15).

JO HURFORD
WC1